Sep 2008

Ok so

I arrived in chachapoyas to the difficult task of selecting a guide.

Everyone knows someone who knows the area really well and was there just last week.

I was doing something which not a lot of tourists do, hiking around the various jungle ruins of the Chachapoyan culture rather than just visiting the main monument Kuelap.

Chachapoyas is about 12 hours inland from the coast of peru and when I first asked the information people in chiclayo which bus company was best to get there the woman told me that there had been a landslide and that they could take you to within 4 hours walk of chachapoyas but you would have to hire a donkey and walk the rest of the way.

After a bit of consideration I thought yeah I can do that why not.

When I returned to the independent information centre again the next day the woman told me this wasn´t the case and that the road opened for 2x2 hour periods and that the bus timed it so the wait was minimal.

Movil tours is the nicest bus company i have ever been on. I don't think locals really fly here and so there are some really nice bus companies, heaps of room and they gave you food and coffee (for a 12 hour bus ride).

Cha cha (as the locals call it) was a little bigger than I expected but I had no plans for a hostal and after wandering aimlessly around the plaza trying to decide followed a random person to his hostal and decided there was a good as any. they offered me the guide that works with their hotel. And after giving me the spiel and the price he seemed pretty reasonable. Compared him to the other tour agencies and decided to go with him (mainly cause he offered me a free day around chachapoyas hence I could test him out).

After my free day around the area I fired him. He was a recovering alcoholic christian who because he had church couldn´t leave until 12:30 and had to return by 7 30 pm which I thought would be fine....expect we needed more time than that for the walk. Especially when he got lost. We walked for an hour in the dark and still had to catch a taxi back to the town. I got quite pscyhed up about firing him because the wage he was going to make was quite a lot for the week compared to normal for him, we had already bought food to share for the week and I thought he would try and kick up a stink....I was really ready to have a good argument with him and think I was kind of excited about the idea of firing my first person...unfortunately he didn´t kick up a stink he sought of said that is fine I asked him if he understood me and he said yeah its fine.

In his defence he did find the ruin that we went to see which was about 1000 years old and had a cool vibe to the location which a massive frieze of an eye that was supposed to the symbolic of a lookout (he may have been making this up the other guide seemed to think differently).

For the fact that he didn´t kick up and stink (oh and the fact he was a bad guide who really didn´t know the area) HATED HIM.

Went to a different company and hired their guide for something similar that would start one day later.

Armado hardly looked like a hiking guide (he was a big guy). He knew heaps about the chachapoyan culture which was cool but really didn´t know the trails and we ended up hiring another guide on the 2nd and 3rd days and couldn´t complete the walking that we were supposed to on the 3rd day.

But he was great on the first day. After about an hour of walking we went off the trail and into the jungle to look at the ruins of houses at pilcapampa. This was amazing. It was effectively bush bashing behind a machete weilding local for about 2 hours. Down and around quite large ruins of houses and also fotresses that he said were from about 250 years after christ (this may have been an exaggeration).

We had dinner, breakfast got a room each for 20 soles (about 7 dollars) which was great and headed off (this time with my mochilla on a horse= for a gruelling day.

after 6 hours we reached the town near the next ruins hire another local guide and after 90 minutes of uphill through a muddy track we reached the ruins of paxamarca. These were a mix of rectangular and circular buildings which was a mix of chachapoyan and incan influence (the incas conquered the cha chas about 30 years before the spanish arrived).

We did some more bush bashing around funky houses hypothesising about which were temples. Armado took more photos and also took video....this is never a good sign for a guide.

He really didn´t know anything about this site and the reason why was cause he´d only been there one time before. After another hour of decent (about 9 hours walking around in total) I had a cold outdoor shower (which was basically just off the main road of the town behind a brick wall)...that was fun.

The next day had another early start and this time the promise of coca chewing (a leaf that the locals chew). Basically in these leaves there is a minute amount of cocaine and they then put calcium in their mouths to speed up the release of the cocaine. The idea is that you aren´t supposed to be thirsty or tired while you do the absurdly difficult and long walks between towns....lets just say I was both tired and thirsty after 7 and a half hours of uphill walking and when I was told we had another 5 to go I jumped at the suggestion of hiring a car.

Found the cutest puppy and a comfy place for the night. Hired a car for the whole next day when we visited Kuelap and a museum at Leymebamba.

Armado was very knowledgable about Kuelap (yeah so what all of the guides are it is the major attraction in the area). I later found out he had probably visited the fotress over 1800 times. Some people say that kuelap is better than macchu picchu cause there are less tourists there (stay tuned for macchu picchu vs kuelap). We were alone for the whole 2 hours and it was great.

The fotress is huge and has two different levels (the first was the original fortress then the second when the population had grown). At some points the wall is 19 metres high. There are some cool masoleums and a little bit of carvings on the wall but the impressive thing is just the sheer size of it. It is at 3000 metres mas o menos and was frankly astounding.

I loved it and was enthralled by the visit.

We then visited a cool museum about the culture which had artefacts from one of the moseleums that this culture built on ledges halfway up cliffs.

This one is a tough call. the area around Chachapoyas was so cool. Beautiful sceneries and valleys. Great ruins which were that little bit more interesting cause they were still covered in jungle so there wasn´t that touristy feel.
So the area around chacha is great.

The guide armado - slow at walking (not as bad as chin fringe) didn´t really know a whole heap about the other sites and when he did try and hypothesise about it with me his ideas seemed pretty stupid and he really didn´t know the area that well.

In the end the thing that tipped the scales was the fact that he woudn´t camp any of the nights...he needed his big meal and his bed....also i think sometimes when he didn´t know the answer to a question he just made things up (not that I know this for a fact)...so HATED HIM.

Cha cha is a tiny town (although it is the capital of the region) and to be perfectly honest I am starting to hate it but I am here for a couple more night cause they ahve the cheapest spanish lessons I have been able to find in peru.

At the moment if you asked me to pick between the ecuadoreans and the peruvians I would pick the ecuadoreans in a heartbeat...but we´ll give the peruvians a few more weeks before we pass judgement.

Hola all,

I´ve been puting off writing this entry as Erica is the first person of my travel buddies who I´m pretty sure will actually read the entry about herself...(hugo if you're still reading sorry about calling you eurotrash i meant it in a good way I promise).

To recap : Erica is an Irish woman that I met in Cuenca and did the (thankfully) uneventful boarder crossing with. She made bad things bearable and good things more enjoyable.

Once we finally arrived in Chiclayo after almost 24 hours we found a hotel and secretly /guilily (or not secretly now) indulged in a small amount of television (grey´s anatomy to be exact when dr burke was still around).

We shared many eventful things in a rather strange way....basically we didn´t know each other from a bar of soap and then spent 4 or 5 days straight with each other (every waking hour). And in four days she didn't annoy me once...she hurt my feelings a few times but that was only when she did what she does best....telling it like it is. I'm sure some of you know that this is a quality I admire in people.

She told me that I was tragic when I said I thougt about staying in Cuenca for an extra night so that I could watch grey´s anatomy on monday night cable tv.

Abused me for speaking spanish in my sleep.

She let me speak the spanish all the time (restaurants, tour operators etc) just cause she knew I liked to practice/show off.

I'm sure some of you have realised I have a habit about being overly polite after I've made a decision about something that I'm doing with a group. I tend to ask again and again "are you sure you want to do this".

Doing this infruriated Erica and after 2 days we were going to try and find this market to look at (walking in the wrong direction but that is circumstantial). I asked her again are you sure you want to go to this market.

She said something to the effect of

"Haven´t we already had this conversation. You always do this and I can´t figure out whether you just don't want to do the thing we are about to do or whether you are just being overly polite". I said (a little taken aback) " just overly polite".

She implied that I should stop it and on we went to the market.

One doesn't often find someone who is a) prepared to tell you to stop an annoying habit when they have just met you and b) able to do it in a polite way (well she was almost polite)....she proceeded to verbally slap me on the wrist when I did it again.

We visited a couple of great museums in Chiclayo together and also some tombs from almost 2000 years ago. The cultures were very interesting and after a day with a great guide (in english) some amazing artefacts (some recovered from grave robbers) and some not so amazing archeological sites (the pyramids looked like they were hills of dirt made by really big ants) it was time for Erica to leave chiclayo and me to go to Chachapoyas.

I really enjoyed spending time with erica and we shared a lot especially about her cuban fling (her favourite topic). With other people I think this might have worn a bit but with me I lapped up all the gossip like a super absorbant mop.

Needless to say as a man and a woman travelling together (both with pale skin) we were mistaken for everything from partners to siblings.

Chiclayo was great LOVED IT.

Erica was pretty good too but one thing she didn't like was the way I denied myself things: ie I had just started my no alcohol kick and was about a week through it which annoyed her. I also loved to look at the thousand and one heladerias (ice cream shops) but not buy anything (it really is a fun game but I'm no sure anyone gets it but kate).

She told me that it was no fun drinking or eating ice cream alone and that I ruined those things for her while I travelled with her.

Despite this LOVED HER.

Crossed the boarder from Loja to Piura.

It was great completely hassle free. There were no cues at immigration. We had our own personal guide (a peruvian guy who lives and works in ecuador who was visiting his family) and I even had a companion for the bus journey which turned out to be fabulous boarder crossing betty or as she likes to be known erica. Erica is a socail worker from Southern Ireland now living in scotland.

Asked aforementioned hostal whether we needed to book tickets on a bus from loja to piura....she said no...and she was wrong. Despite being a relatively nice woman I hate her.

After 5 hours in a bus (spanish music at a decent volume no movie ;( ) we got to Loja in the South of Ecuador at about 9:30pm. We asked about the 10:30 bus to Piura....llerno....we asked about the 11pm bus to loja cancelled. We went to a different company and asked about the 12 bus llerno....we then proceeded to ask about the 3am bus it had about 11 spots left. It wasn{t that there were so many ecuadoreans leaving the country that there were no room for foreigners...it was more that they were going to just before the boarder and hence we couldn´t get anywhere near a bus at a reasonable hour. I felt a bit guilty at this stage as it had been my suggestion to erica that she join me on a night bus and so we had a decision wait 5 hours in the terminal or catch the 7am bus and go and stay a night in a hostel.

She was a trooper and so began our exciting evening in Loja bus station which was a filthy sespule (?). It was accopanied by a plain plate of rice (we couldn't face the stangnant chicken that looked like it had been cooked at 4pm) at the 24 hour restaurant and 2 sanduches (ice cream sandwiches). we got to know each other and after personal stories we really hit it off. 3am came rolling around eventually and we hopped onto our bus after travelling for about 11 hours.

This one was a hairy ride down a mountain in the middle of the night spanish music on at full bore for the first 30 minutes until i abused the attendant to turn it town. I think i brokenly said something in the vaciinity of "leave off the music".

Slept a bit and then cruised across the boarder in a 4x4. Boarder patrol was hardly difficult. If you had your passport you could get through. And it is my personal opinion that you could have walked across the bridge and through customs without anyone stopping you. There were people but they didn{t really look that interested in what was going on. There was a bridge in between the boarders and one guy in just his dacks was wading across the river (he was a local and no-one seemed to care). When he came out the other side we realised he had been taking his pigs for a wash through the river....we wanted to take a photo but thought that might attract us some unwanted attention.

Crossed in style (no money needed) then the bus picked us up...more spanish music at full bore....by this stage it really was inexcusable there was about 6 people in the bus and we were all trying to sleep except for our "guide" who after sleeping from cuenca to Loja and loja to the border had decided that he was up for the day at 8am in the morning.

Bad latin american music may keep the driver awake but i´d rather die.

It was so loud that I struggled to hear my peruvian guides annoying conversation. He rattled on so despite the music I wouldn{t ahve been able to get to sleep anyway. Eventually I told him I needed some sleep (even after telling him exactly how much sleep i'd had in the last 24 hours he still didn{t shut up). I think I would normally have been much more rude if it hadn{t have been great spanish practice (ps. {is where the ' should be on the keyboard).

We got to Piura changed some money and wolfed down some lunch and hopped on the bus again to Chiclayo. He basically showed me exactly where to do all of this and hence despite the overzealous conversation when I wanted to sleep (he deteriorated to asking me what type of music i liked) I still loved him.

If you read the previous mention Boarder crossing betty got bed bugs in the hostal we stayed at. And to sooth them put heaps of savlon on all the time. The problem was that this stuff dries and flakes and she looked like she had bits of skin coming off. It was totally hot especially when I didn{t know what it was and it was hanging from her neck.

Eventually we got to Chiclayo at 3pm. This is almost 24 hours of travelling and it really was relatively painless (mainly thanks to our guide and the nice company of Betty).

I'll reserve my judgement of boarder crossing betty for the next entry.

Cuenca is the third largest ecuadorian city and it is a pearler. Really quite a pretty old colonial city. The churches weren´t great but the museums with archeological artefacts from Tomebamba and around the region really were (my personal favourite was the pestle and mortar with the grinder in the shape of a penis...yeah i´m easily amused).

The Hostel owned by a man, who I later found out was the vice president of the chamber of tourism for cuenca, was up 6 flights of stairs (permanantly broken elevator) and had a view out over half the city which was great at night. The beds were from the mid eighties (huge dips in the middle which meant the best position was across the bed in the dip) but the rooms had cable tv...dickhead. The kitchen had a great view, a rice cooker but no toaster...umm...

My soon to be Irish friend got bed bugs (sleeping in the room I would have got had I gone with a private bathroom instead of shared) but had wireless internet.

This guy had his priorities wrong. Basic hotels ($8 per night) need to get the simple things right. Be clean and have comfortable.

He was nice enough but i have to say it he was an idiot and clearly didn´t know how to run a hostel (beyond finding a great spot). Hated him.

Business in ecuador and peru (and sometimes people) just don´t seem to get prioritising the most important steps to take before trying to act like a first world country. They all sold random things (which shops right next to each other selling exaclty the same things) some without any connection...eg underwear stores with an ice cream freezer out front.

I think the most disturbing thing was walking through really poor rural areas whose lifesavings is their 4 cattles in their back yard but seeing mobile phones left right and centre.

I met and spoke with an american writer who was teaching at a non profit bi lingual school in Cuenca for a year. The teachers there get paid 300 dollars a month. He was very interesting and informative and cracked a beer (longneck) at 10 in the morning on a saturday so loved him.

Went to hot baths while he was knocking back his beer and almost died of bliss. 3 pools (which i had to myself for the best part of 3 hours...a little longer than you are meant to stay in) of 8, 40 and 45 degrees. They were great and really hot and at one point after going from the 45 to the 8 and sitting there for a while I felt like my head was floating as my heart rate dropped down to like 40 beats per minute. A really blissful day relaxing after my hard hike.

Loved myself for making the trip out to do that.

Cuenca was uneventful except for meeting erica my travel budy for over the boader into peru.

Went straight from Quito to a place called el tambo to drop off some of my stuff and then hit the ingañan to ingapirca (ecuador´s premiere inca ruin).
Hmm
The first person of note was the 35 year old single man with his own business who befriended me and within the space of 5 hours had changed the place I was going to stay (it was much more convenient but not even mentioned in the lonely planet. LOVED HIM but am almost sure he was hitting on me. 35 single still living with his parents (it’s the custom if you don´t get married and sometimes even if you are married), sung in a choir and was a big cute bear (not really my style but I was obviously his). Very helpful and I enjoyed one spectacular sunset with him from out the window of the bus. Love my pink skies.

The second person of note was the pick up driver from the town of alausi to the town of achupallas. Great driver on a very bad road. Was even nice enough to drop me further than pick ups usually would to take some time off my first days walk (I started a bit late).

The problem was he basically took any chance I had of securing a guide in the town away from me. While technically he was doing the right thing 4 hours later I was ruing the day I met him. So I started of in drizzling rain by myself. Had to scale up a hole through rocks (very difficult by myself). And then read the guide book wrong and went up a huge mountain for an hour and a half when I should have been going across. When I got to the top o the mountain and realized I was lost it started to sleet which pelted against my face with pain due to the strong winds.

Fell down a hill when I was getting back to the track for about 8 or 9 metres and was generally swearing at him and myself for being so stupid (ahhh dunno I´m gonna go with hated him).
Then the god send. Found the track again walked for about 30 minutes and looked down to the river bed. Saw what I thought was a blue tent. Looked again (this time not through my sleet covered sun glasses) it was a tent. Took off down the hill for the safety of other people. Dropped my compass on the way down (without realizing).
But eventually got the safety of strangers to realize it was not just one tent but 3 with 2 donkeys. It was freezing and my hands were numb as I abused my tent but eventually I was inside dry and warm inside my sleeping bad which is less than I can say for the French people I were with who had hired their gear.

After an average night´s sleep and a lot of peanut butter (someone has to lick the knife clean) I discovered that the French people had had such an awful night that they had told their guides they could not camp another night. They were heading off at pace and I was not going anywhere without a compass after looking at the morning fog and so I threw my pack on top of a donkey and off we went.
We caught up with another group as we walked through their campsite for the night 1.5 hours ahead and saw the ice on the group and around the edge of the lake and began to be seriously impressed with out guide´s choice of camping site.

Walked over a freezing mountain top and then back onto the ingañan with a beautiful view of a snaking river leading to a lake. It was much warmer over this side.

Walked past a small ruin and onto the second camp site in the mist.

By this stage out mules/donkeys were walking with the other groups mules and the other group with their non-local guide walked out ahead of the mules with the local guides (big mistake).
It was really misty and a tiny bit rainy (visibility was about 25 metres) and the non local guide with the other two woman walked off in a totally different direction to what they were supposed to and got lost about 5 kms west of where they were supposed to be.
I stuck with the donkeys and when the frenchys went off to the local town to get their pickup truck to the ruins I was left with the two local guides and 5 donkeys all when I had started with none.

The local guides were cool and spent 90 minutes looking for the lost people. They were too far gone and eventually we came to the decision that we would camp for the night and walk the last 2.5 hours the next morning very early.

With ice on my tent I packed up and strolled out at a cracking pace with the remaining guides and ended up being first to the ruins out of everyone of that day.

The ruins were big but nothing amazing, apparently unique with their ovular structure of the temple of the sun but with nothing to compare it to (first ruin) that really didn´t mean anything to me.

Guides hmm they smoked, littered a tiny bit and made me get up super early on the last day when we really didn´t need to…..but let´s face it they had donkeys which carried my pack (can I love the donkeys but not the guides?). LOVED THEM ALL trekking with donkeys is still hard cause you walk faster but nowhere near as painful.
FRENCHIES (loved them, even though they didn´t get my jokes….don´t they have sarcasm in France…I said we should have brought our ice skates for the near frozen lake and they said hmm “doesn´t look like it is quite frozen enough”.

When I returned from the massive ruin to the town of el tambo I was officially sick but it was the perfect town to sleep 13 hours in and recuperate then onto Cuenca.

In El tambo the son of the owner practiced a bit of English and Spanish with me. Nothing really of note but he tried his hardest (loved him).